A plan to allow Ohio’s 14 public universities to become “enterprise” schools — receiving less state funding in exchange for no longer being held to some “burdensome” regulations — has stalled indefinitely, although no formal declaration of its status has been made by the state to the higher education institutions.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich remains committed to the concept of enterprise universities, also known as charter universities, spokesman Rob Nichols said Monday. The plan has not been introduced in the General Assembly to date, although an implementation deadline was set for July 1 when the idea was proposed in 2011.

Parts of the plan already have been implemented, including the state’s construction reform initiative that frees universities from having to hire multiple prime contractors on campus projects.

“Our commitment to helping higher education reduce its cost is ongoing,” Nichols said. “We will continue to push for ways to help them. Enterprise universities was one of those ways. We think that that concept is absolutely critical.”

The legislature tasked Ohio Chancellor Jim Petro with developing a plan for enterprise universities by August 2011, which he delivered. The idea was championed as a way for universities to save millions of dollars by freeing them from burdensome regulations, and in exchange, they would receive less state funding.

Petro outlined varying levels of the enterprise status universities could reach, and among the benefits would be the freedom to discount tuition at off-peak hours and buy and sell property without seeking state approval.

University officials opposed associating those freedoms with a cut in state funding. Because of the potential savings, schools would give up 10 to 20 percent of their per student state funding — which would be directed to scholarships.

“We still continue to believe that there are state regulations that could be repealed that could make operating a state university more efficient,” said Bruce Johnson, president of the Inter-University Council of Ohio, an advocacy group representing the 14 state universities. “We were opposed to associating that with some type of cut in funding.”

Miami University President David Hodge said the decision to wait is not surprising.

“It just turned out to be more much more complex than anyone anticipated,” said Hodge, who said at the time the plan was released that Ohio was in the bottom 10 nationally for state support with funding equivalent to the levels of 1991.

Wright State University President David Hopkins said there were many concerns about the proposed funding cuts. During a meeting Monday with the Wright State faculty senate, he said the plan had “met its end for a while.”

“The idea is we need to be less regulated so we can respond to the needs of our community,” Hopkins said following the meeting. “The concept is good. It’s just how we visit it in the future, and how we put it into existence that really works without taking money.”

Hodge said the state universities are still committed to the idea of reducing regulations and dedicating more money to scholarships.

Petro’s spokeswoman Kim Norris said the chancellor “fully anticipates that there will be ongoing efforts to look at ways to assist universities in removing some of the unnecessary regulations and mandates that are in place.”

Nichols said the mid-biennial budget review was “not the vehicle for the enterprise university plan.”

“We want to assure we get things absolutely right,” he said. “There are parts of it that we’re going to continue to push for.”